by Jaded (opheliadrowning@hotmail.com)
Chapter 7
A/N: Lyrics are from Ben Fold's "The Luckiest" on the Rockin' the Suburbs album. Also, thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, and supported me so far in the writing of this story. We're in the home stretch now.
Summary: Jackie and Hyde have had a bumpy past, and the future looks far from perfect. But who ever said that imperfect meant things didn't work out?
Rating: Still PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, but I've had a lot of fun playing with other people's toys.
Chapter 7: The Luckiest"I don't get many things right the first time,
In fact I am told that a lot,
Now I know all the wrong turns –
The stumbles and falls brought me here"
I am not the kind of guy to turn down free stuff. Hell, I don't turn down stuff that I'm supposed to pay for. I'm all about liberation, man, because capitalism enslaves the working man. So when I got down to the hotel lobby I made my way towards the free continental breakfast and liberated a couple of blueberry muffins and a cup of hot black coffee. Hey, I technically was a guest at the hotel because I spent the night so I'm entitled to some grub, but then again it's not like it mattered anyway. Rules are arbitrary and I interpret them as I feel like.
And so while I waited for Forman to come and follow me as per Donna's orders (he's so predictable ) I finished off the food and thought about the only other thing that I could think about: Jackie.
Right about then I felt like I'd just had a stay of execution. I spent the night with Jackie, kissing her, touching all those soft and smooth spots with my hands and with my mouth, places that I thought I'd never have access to again. But then there they were, and there she was. I even liked listening to her talk again, even though a lot of it was yelling, but that's something I'm used to by now, thanks to Edna. Water off a duck's back, man.
When I moved to Madison I did everything humanly possible to forget about anything that had ever gone on in Point Place. I got a job at a bar where I figured no one from Point Place would ever find, no less go to, didn't try to make any friends or get to know anybody, and yeah, went on a few dates here and there with some chicks, all of them tall, some red-headed, mostly blondes. The anti-Jackie Burkhart dating diet.
But the thing was, after the first one-night stand with this blonde co-ed named either Julia or Rachel—it's kind of a blur—I just quit the chicks cold turkey. So it was only two months, but I'm a growing boy with a libido that okay, may not quite be on par with Kelso or Fez, but still. But Jackie had thrown that off completely, and even when some of these girls had something interesting to say—such as discussing Blue Oyster Cult's newest album or talking about the possibility of a car that could run on water—I'd just tune-out, and what would I be thinking about instead? Hair care and cheerleading. Jackie must have brainwashed me, and the thing was, I didn't even mind. I wanted to hear this stuff, but I only wanted to hear it coming from her.
Messed up. So messed up, man.
I didn't even get a chance to get over her when she walked back into my life. Honestly, I'm still confused about what really happened last night. One minute she's screaming at me, telling me what a asshole I am, the next minute we're all over each other, getting hot and heavy, and she tells me that she still loves me.
And I surprise myself, because I tell her that I still loved her too, although not in so many words. Surprised, not because I said it, not because I meant it, but because I think . . . I'm starting to get it, that I'm starting to understand that this is what love really feels like. It's like the best high ever, but that you still feel paranoid that maybe it's not for real.
I chucked the muffin wrapper in the garbage and started mulling over why Jackie's even bothering giving me a second shot. I messed up badly. It's what I do. I messed around with another girl while we were still together and then threw it in her face, even when I knew better, and knew that she wasn't in the best place anyway, what with her dad in jail and her mom drinking her way through Central America and her whole history with Kelso cheating on her. And yet I still did it, and now here she is, giving me another chance to not break her heart.
And I don't know if I can do that. I just know that I don't want to mess up again, but theory is not practice. I don't want to be that guy, I don't want to be the dumbass that makes her so sad and angry again. But then again, I'm here and she says that she still wants me. Then again, Jackie's clearly crazy, but that's probably also rubbed off on me.
I guess you could say I'm crazy about her. I'd have to be crazy. Me and Jackie Burkhart. It still seems like some giant joke, but it's not so funny to me, not anymore.
"And where was I before the day,
That I first saw your lovely face,
Now I see it every day,
And I know,
That I am, I am,
I am, the luckiest"
When Kelso started dating Jackie, and she began coming around the basement all the time the whole gang was just annoyed, well except maybe for Fez who lusted after her for the good part of two years. For all her hotness at first, she was way too annoying and I didn't even consider her. Not at first at least.
I can't remember when she stopped being as annoying, or why for the life of me her presence around the basement started being okay, but it just did one day. Sure, we still fought like cats and dogs. I don't think a single day went without a burn—usually me burning her—passing between the two of us. You could say it was like foreplay, but without all the benefits that should have come afterwards. Sure, Jackie was annoying and bossy and shrill, but I was also human.
Then things started getting jumbled around. Jackie and Kelso broke up, dance around the subject a lot, and on and on. It was freakin' horrible to watch, and not in a good way like race cars crashing or hockey players beating the living shit out of one another.
Maybe that's when it all changed. Maybe I just didn't like seeing anyone being put over by Michael Kelso, who if you're going to be truthful, is the biggest moron in the continental United States. But it might have been when Kelso really started hurting her and it wasn't so funny anymore. A good burn was for the record books, but not when it was the kind that cut right down to the bone.
When in May that year Jackie forced me to ask her to prom…I could have said, "No," but I didn't. I could have ditched her that night to go drink beer or watch TV, but instead I did the whole number. Tuxedo. Matching shirt. Corsage. I didn't think of her like that then, but something compelled me to make it one of those "nights to remember" for her. Jackie Burkhart. That girl gets me all tied up in knots.
To tell the truth, when we were at the prom that night I didn't want her running back to Kelso. I don't know what I wanted. What I got was Pam Macy in the back of Jackie's dad's Lincoln, which was good then, but it hadn't been part of any sort of plan. Of course, I'm a go-with-the-flow kind of guy, but I still didn't want a second season of the Jackie and Kelso show, but that's what happened. I told Kelso then that it all just "sickened me," but he didn't take it like I meant it.
Crap. And so the two of them went back and forth for what seemed like forever. Fighting, making up, and the cheating. Man, the cheating. I guess I really don't have much of a right to talk about it, to pass any sort of judgment, but the way he kept dogging on her really tore me up, and it was hard not showing it. So I did what I thought was best: I dogged on Kelso every chance I got. I reminded Jackie about all the times he had lied to her, took her money, and all the times he had broken her heart. But it took Laurie Forman to really drive home the point to her that maybe Kelso wasn't so great.
I don't think I liked her then, not like that at least. But who knows. It took Mrs. Forman at the Veteran's Day barbecue to make to obvious to me, because I didn't want it to be true. But then that didn't work out, not like it might have.
"I didn't feel anything." That's what she said to me. I couldn't get over that for a while. How could she not? She had been chasing me for months. "Steven! You're so funny! Steven! You're such a card! Steven! Underneath it all you're really just a big old softy!" It was that to nothing, and I found that I missed the attention. I missed her. It wasn't right, but it was reality.
But listen to me. I've become such a woman. Or like Forman. I've had way too much time on my hands since I moved to Madison. I was always about a little Hyde Zen-Time back in Point Place, but at least there I had more to distract myself with. Forman was always running into my room bemoaning how yet again, Donna had misunderstood him, or it was Fez telling me about his needs, or Kelso yet again being Kelso. Living alone, bar tending at nights, I had a lot of time to just think, and more often then not it was about Jackie.
It got to the point where I didn't even remember what it was like before Jackie.
"What if I'd been born,
Fifty years before you in a house,
On the street where you lived?
Maybe I'd be outside
As you passed on your bike,
Would I know?"
From the corner of my eye I suddenly saw Forman dashing through the lobby and out into the street. It looked like he went flying. I walked over to see where he went. He was shielding his eyes from the early morning sun with one hand, searching frantically. Typical. Completely clueless.
I sighed, pushed my way through the glass doors and called to him. He turned and jumped like a startled puppy and stared at me without saying a word.
"Following orders from your woman?" I asked casually as though I had just seen him the day before. He seemed to draw himself up a little. He walked towards me.
"Hey, man!" he said. He jabbed a bony finger towards my chest. I raised an eyebrow in warning and he backed off. "Hey," he said again, deflated.
"Hey yourself."
"Donna told me to come get you." Forman's shoulders slumped.
"So I heard."
"So uh, where the hell have you been, man?"
I shrugged. "Here. Working. Living."
"Why here though? We all thought you'd go somewhere wilder, like New York, or maybe Kenosha."
I shrugged again. "I'm starting college in the fall. I figured I might as well get here first and find a place to live."
Forman let out a sharp laugh, then caught himself when he realized I was being serious.
"College, Hyde? That's so not you though."
"People change, man. This is a different Steven Hyde."
"Well, you do have a beard again."
Then we both seemed at a loss for words. I'm normally a man of few words, so nothing was that unusual on my end, but Forman? He prattles on like a chatty little girl. Silence is odd for him.
"Donna's going to be so pissed off when she talks to you," he blurted out.
I laughed. "I don't doubt that, man," I say, and he laughs too, though a little nervously.
Donna. Her name brings back the strangest memory, how, back before she and Forman started going steady "officially," I kind of had a thing for her. Donna Pinciotti. Still fiery, still hot, but not for me anymore. She was at one point though. It made sense. I was cool. She was cool. We would've made a hot couple, but she had a thing for the skinny neighbor boy, and Donna's was as stubborn as I am. Which might have been the problem, ultimately.
On paper I think me and Donna would've made sense, but on paper Jackie and Kelso also kind of make sense. Look at how that turned out.
Donna has definite opinions about a lot of things, and she likes to talk about them. A lot. And until she "wins." I don't think Donna would have liked me much if I told her to shut her trap all the time, and I wouldn't have liked her too much if she had lectured at me every day. Donna needed someone to boss around—like Forman for instance—and I needed someone to try and boss me around like Jackie. Not that she'd ever succeed, but when we were going out Jackie and I worked out a system. She'd talk and maybe I'd listen, but she'd never press the issue and I'd be there when she wanted someone to talk to. So Donna needs Forman like I need Jackie.
Huh. Well beat that, I need Jackie.
It's funny how things work out. If I had ever gone out with Donna then maybe Jackie and I would have never happened. We would've never have gone to prom, she and Kelso would've never gotten back to together, broken up again, and again, and then Jackie and I would've never have had that summer together in the basement when Kelso ran off to California. A lot of what-ifs.
"And in a wide sea of eyes,
I see one pair of eyes that I recognize,
And I knowThat I am, I am,
I am, the luckiest"
I noticed then that Forman was still looking at me with this expectant look.
"Yeah?" I asked.
"You're not going to. . . run off again, are you, Hyde?"
I turned and looked back at the hotel behind me, thinking of someone in her room, probably brushing her hair or putting on her make-up. "No," I said. "I don't think so."
Forman looked relieved. "Good. Does this mean I'll see you later then, man? I think Donna wants me to report . . . err, tell her what's going on."
"You go do that. I'll see you later, 'kay?"
"Right."
And that was that. He went scurrying off to find Donna and I headed back to my apartment to clean up.
It's a common myth that circulates that I, Steven Hyde, do not care about personal hygiene, but that is a misconception. Sure, I look scruffy, but it's a cultivated look that's been a work in progress for many years. I head back to my apartment to clean up a little. Jackie always liked it when I smelled clean like soap. Maybe because it was a contrast from Kelso, who frankly always smelled a little funky.
I wouldn't be telling her any of this, of course, but I was going to do what little I could to make her happy today. If being clean is one way, then I was going to scrub down, baby. Although the beard would stay, at least for now. This is my second chance. I could screw it up, like I usually do, like my parents did, but this time I don't want to.
A few minutes before noon I returned to the hotel to wait for her, and while I'm waiting I feel strangely paranoid that maybe, just maybe, she's not going to show up. I started considering what to do in such a case. Break down her door and demand she come out, or just leave. But I didn't get the chance to pick because she showed up. Sweeping down the stairs like a beauty pageant queen, she waved, her smile wide and toothy. When Jackie reached the bottom of the steps, she broke into a sprint and headed straight into my arms. I caught her and we spun a little. She squealed happily.
"I love you more than I have ever found a wayTo say to you"
Without thinking, I kissed her. Her mouth opened willingly, and we probably were making a scene, but whatever. She moaned softly, and when I looked I saw that here eyes were shut and that she was smiling at me.
"You came," she said breathlessly, hugging me around the waist.
"Of course I did. You think I would miss this?"
She blushed.
She leaned in and whispered in my ear, "You big softy."
"Oh shut up," I said.
"Let's go to lunch." Jackie reached out and pulled my arm, dragging me out of the front doors and onto the street. Once outside I reached immediately for my sunglasses. When I did I felt her stop my hand with hers.
"Don't. You're always hiding your eyes, Steven. I think they're beautiful. I firmly believe that if you have an asset like that you should flaunt it."
"Jackie—"
"For me? Pretty please?"
I looked at her, at her beautiful, pouting face and well, crap. 'Fine," I said, pulling them off and clipping them back onto my shirt. "But if I go blind from too much sun exposure, it's going to be on your head."
"If you do, I'll make it up to you then."
Interesting.
She smirked, but then turned away and started dragging me down the street again. She was practically skipping. I went along, but not skipping of course.
"Next door there's an old manWho lived into his nineties
And one day, passed away, in his sleep,
And his wife, she stayed
For a couple of days and passed away
I'm sorry I know that's
A strange way to tell you
That I know, we belong,
That I know
That I am, I am,
I am, the luckiest."
While we're eating lunch I just sat there, listening to her. It was as though we had fallen back into old patterns, and it felt kind of good. I noticed a few stupid-looking frat boy types checking her out at the restaurant, and it was pretty hilarious because they'd make eye contact with me and shrink away like violets. Idiots. I could just see them thinking, "What's that guy doing with that chick?" Morons.
Just because we might not look right together doesn't mean we're not…right together, you know? Jackie keeps talking about her newest dress and how the new school year is starting and she's going to have to really whip the cheerleading squad into shape, but I think about Mr. and Mrs. Forman, of all things. Those two weren't exactly your cookie-cutter couple, and looked how they worked out.
It makes me feel hopeful, if you really wanted to know how I felt. Maybe this time I wouldn't screw things up, or visa versa. Who knows. I'm actually considering commitment and adhering to social conventions. Stranger things have happened. Maybe Jackie and I would be lucky enough to work out.
[THE END]
Thanks for reading!
